Allied

Allied is definitely a simplification of history, but in a nice retro-Hollywood guise that makes us turn a blind eye to that fact. It is surprisingly not tacky, dramatic bordering on chilling due to the atmosphere of the period in which the story takes place. It is also perfectly directed with cool professionalism and without the tear-jerking we might expect from Robert Zemeckis, and without any grand love motifs we might expect from Alan Silvestri. Because such a well-written script with such a powerful story doesn't need any of that. The ending totally got me. (02/07/2017)

Knight doesn’t write bad stories and when he pays homage to Hollywood classics like Casablanca, he manages to add an element of modernity. Pitt’s cold fish Max Vatan melting in the arms of Marion Cotillard in action scenes is still an effective killing machine and the spying game is much more convincing than usual. Details, details and more details. Zemeckis has made a strong genre piece with abundant gleaming camera shots and, the occasional feeble special effect here and there doesn’t matter in the slightest. A quality romantic wartime drama about family, love and good people in a difficult situation. Ideal for a date. (01/30/2017)

Zemeckis and Burgess revel in subtle camera-special effects, but instead of a marital drama, they unwittingly chart a cheesy WWII romance where sex is the equivalent of a desert storm and a Luftwaffe precision strike family picnic. These images, painstakingly copied from Spielberg, including Williams' score, only prove that some genres are passé even for experienced storytellers. The film is subjectively four hours long. (01/25/2017)

Neither great nor terrible. As usual, the enemies run straight into the fire of the heroes, who are then able to leave the scene without any consequences. Then the film morphed into some sort of a romantic drama with war used only as a backdrop to the story. The situation was saved by the ending. A happy one would have clearly been unfortunate in this case. (04/09/2017)

Emotionally, it's a bit of a cold story that ironically, especially at first, moves quite slowly, but Zemeckis does repair his reputation after the botched The Walk, as Allied may not work as well as a romantic drama, but it certainly works as a WWII spy film. Brad Pitt, of course, as has been the case for the last 10 years, is appropriately wonderful, and Marion Cotillard is traditionally, by eye contact, properly inscrutable. It's not an exemplary hit, but it's filmmaking from a filmmaker who rarely gets it really wrong. It has all the classic filmmaking frameworks that meet at least the standard, plus an absolutely lavish form with at least three over-the-top sequences and a beautifully stylized Morocco set to Silvestri's music. (01/28/2017)